"Solids" for the First Time

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

6 Months

Anastasia Joy is 6 months old. We went to the doctor and he was impressed with how friendly she is and how easily she recovered from the shots he gave her (a few cries and then back to smiles).

She now weighs 7.46 KG (16 lbs 7 oz) and is 67.5 cm (26.5 in) long. She is rolling all over the place and is sitting up for a few minutes at a time. Yesterday we gave her some cereal for the first time and she opened her mouth for the spoon and seemed to eat some of it :) She is still taking short naps and not sleeping through the night- but we are going to work on this.

Overall she is a very happy, friendly baby and a joy to be around.

Look What I Can Do!

Thanksgiving

We were so fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends this Thanksgiving. Toby's parents were here along with his sister Lisel. Then we had 3 other families come over. There were 3 kids under four and 3 babies under 6 months. It was fun to have a full house.

As for food, we arranged for the turkey to be cooked and delivered and then also made a spinach cheese thing. Then our friends brought over the sides and dessert. We had such a spread of great food.




We found out our new table can seat 11 :)

The kids table.

The babies checking each other out.

After dinner the kids entertained us by playing with Elyse's cleaning supplies. The mops became a lot of different things including a hockey stick.

Ticking each other= lots of giggling.

Our Thanksgiving crew minus one family (and Anastasia who was sleeping).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Manado: The Volcano, etc

Another adventure we had in Manado was to visit a volcano. It took about 1.5 -2 hours to get there and then there was a short hike (pretty steep for a 3 year old) to the mouth of the crater. We were lucky we had a clear day and could see down into it. After the volcano we drove to a lake to have lunch. It was raining by this point, but we were lucky to be at a restaurant with covered outdoor seating. Our guide ordered for us and we had a selection of fish and veggies to choose from. As we ate, we could see the fish swimming around that would soon become someone else's lunch.

After lunch we thought we were going back to the hotel, but instead our driver took us to another volcano which had a huge sulfur lake in it's cater. The water was turquoise and smelled of sulfur.

Again, we thought we were going to go back to the hotel, but we then stopped at a stable which kept horses. It was owned by the same people who own the resort we were at. Finally, we did go back to our hotel and had some dinner. It was a long day, but we got to see a lot of the area :)

These pictures are in reverse order- I loaded them wrong and didn't feel like switching them around.

Elyse taking a ride- not sure what to think of it. You would see these horse and carts around the city taking people from one place to another.

The sulfur lake.

On top of the first volcano.

A view into the crater.

Elyse hiking. She did a great job.

A view of Manado.

This picture was from our time at the beach. I forgot to add it. This was the first time Anastasia went swimming. She seemed to like the warm water.

Manado, Indonesia: The beach

We traveled to the city of Manado, Indonesia on the island of Sulawesi to meet up with Toby's parents last week. Why Manado? Well, Jack and Jan knew someone there who offered to let us stay at their resort the Murex. I would highly reccomend it especially if you like to scuba dive.



We stayed in little bungalows that looked out on lush greenery, a little stream and the ocean. It was an all inclusive resort so we had breakfast, lunch, and dinner prepared for us in an outdoor eating area. It was great!

The sleeping arrangements changed each night for our family. The first night T and E stayed in the same room while I shared a room with A. The next night A and E started out together, but I later joined them leaving T in a room by himself. This arrangement seemed to work the best since A was waking up more often since her schedule was off and E didn't seem to be bothered by her crying.

The first full day we woke to a wonderful breakfast and then decided to go to the beach. Where we were staying was a dive resort and didn't have a white sandy beach so we had to take a boat to a small island about 45 minutes away.

One of the men who ran the resort said he put his son in a basket while on the boat and he fell asleep. We tried it with A, but she preferred to sleep in my arms.

While A continued to sleep, the rest of the group headed out into the water. It was so clear.

After an hour or so we had lunch. The resort prepared sandwiches and fruit for us to eat. They even made us dessert sandwiches made of bread smeared with butter and chocolate sprinkles. It was very good.

Gramps having fun with A.

While we were eating we were literal surrounded by onlookers. They thought E and A were so cute. After they stopped taking pictures, Jan asked if we could get their picture.

Back in the water Jan found these starfish with "chocolate chips" on the top of them.

On the way back to the resort a few people took a nap.

Happy Birthday Cate!